Man. I feel like mom life is filled with a butt load of the word "NO!" Can I get an AMEN? It starts early, usually around 9 months. At that point your kiddo becomes mobile and starts to explore their little world. And in their world, a lot of things are unsafe. It then becomes our job (a job which sometimes feels like an entire existence) to keep them safe. And DAMN. There are a lot of unsafe things that kids like to get into...

And it doesn't end. It changes from sharp corners, edges and light sockets to climbing structures, television choices, friend relationships and scary internet safety. I'm sure even more experienced parents would add things like driving, dating, navigating curfews and more. I shudder to even think about those things as I'm buried in the myriad of TWEEN safety issues right now.

But I digress. A lot of our "NO's" come from requests ... "Can I skip my homework?" "Can I go around the block by myself?" "Can I do/go/say what I want when I want where I want?" NOOO!!!!!

So when an opportunity to say "Yes" presents itself, I always try to give in to the YES. I tell Mike often, "Take the EASY yes" because those little YES moments become little parenting "WINS" in a big sea of always saying NO. And by little Yes moments I mean saying YES to "Can I I have a Freezee?" "Can I stay up five more minutes?" "Can you play a game with me?" "Can I choose the song/show/movie etc?" YES. An easy yes.

Today I was in a real I WANT TO SAY NO moment. Because sometimes the "No" comes simply from me (i.e., YOU) not wanting to DEAL. Know what I mean? You know inside your head what an ordeal or process something might be, even though it is SEEMINGLY so easy. So you WANT to say NO but you also know it is an easy YES moment. But sometimes an easy "Yes" means MORE WORK FOR MOM. Work in the form of guidance, clean up, monitoring, engagement, a mess, fighting, whining, not sharing, competition and did I mention CLEAN UP? Yeah, that.

Today after school I internally battled for about 5 minutes and in fact told Luke twice "No." Then I took a deep breath and tried to decide if I was up to the challenge. Do I have enough patience for this to be a "Yes" moment?!? And I did it. I signed up for the YES MOMENT.

What did he do? HE MADE SLIME.

From one mama to another, grasp those "Yes" moments because they really do add up in a giant sea of "NO." Now, off to go (help) clean up the slime mess. ;)